When David O’Leary’s Leeds met Roma in the 1998/99 UEFA Cup, both sides were in very different places. Roma had 1994 World Cup winners Aldair and Cafu at the back, as well as the prodigal son of Italian football, Francesco Totti, in attack. Meanwhile, Leeds had Bruno Ribeiro and David Hopkin.

O’Leary’s babies were very much in their infancy and the team that lost 1-0 over two legs to Zdenek Zeman’s side was revolutionised by the time Leeds returned to Rome the following season to play a UEFA Cup last sixteen tie. Leeds were 2nd in the top flight and seemed destined for the Champions League as the new millennium promised great things for the most exciting young side in Europe.

Roma were also trending upwards as president Franco Sensi used his family’s considerable oil wealth to fund an ambitious and expensive team assembled by Fabio Capello, who had already won a Champions League and four Serie A titles with Milan in the mid-nineties.

This meant Leeds’ young upstarts set off for the Eternal City to face a team seen in Europe as big spenders, one stacked with talent. Roma had lost 1-0 to Juventus a few days before the UEFA Cup clash, prompting captain Totti to proclaim that Roma would “take their anger out on Leeds”. The opening exchanges at Stadio Olimpico suggested as much. Despite an early Eirik Bakke header forcing a save from Roma ‘keeper Francesco Antonioli, Leeds found themselves dug in behind the ball as Totti pulled the strings with a dynamic midfield duo of Hidetoshi Nakata and Damiano Tommasi behind him.

O’Leary tried to spring a tactical surprise and play with a back three while tasking Matt Jones with man-marking Totti, a plan he gave up on after twenty minutes. What was he thinking?! Trying to out-tactic an Italian team has almost never worked, and assigning Jones to track Totti was like asking your granny to chase after a border collie.

The first half went mostly like this: Roma passed the ball to Totti. Totti either shot or played a killer through ball. Nigel Martyn made a save. And repeat.

Marco Delvecchio ensured his status as villain to the 7,000 travelling Leeds fans with an outrageous dive in the 21st minute when Vincent Candela’s through ball gave him a one-on-one with Martyn, who dangled a leg towards Delvecchio as the striker’s touch failed him. Plan B was to throw himself theatrically to the ground, where he found himself under an incredulous Martyn telling him in no uncertain terms to get up and stop acting the prick.

Leeds survived the first period but Totti began the second half as though he was going to win this game by himself. The upturned collar, captain’s armband, and flowing locks gave him the aura of a Renaissance prince, albeit the petulant sort who might have you killed if you don’t bow to his obvious superiority.

But the Romans only became increasingly frustrated with Leeds’ resoluteness. It probably didn’t help that the team Roma couldn’t break were also wearing kits that closely resembled their hated rivals Lazio. Michael Bridges and Harry Kewell gave Leeds an outlet with impressive yet workman-like attacking performances. Kewell perhaps turned it up a notch in the knowledge that several top Serie A clubs had sent scouts to watch him.

The Roma attacking trident of Totti, Delvecchio, and Vincenzo Montella continued to pile pressure on Leeds’ goal and Martyn made another string of saves in the final fifteen minutes to ensure the game ended goalless. I wonder if the scouts who came to see Kewell left thinking that Martyn might be a cheaper alternative to the £30m+ that Parma were requesting for Gigi Buffon.

Appearing on The Square Ball podcast in 2022, Martyn revealed the secret to his display in Rome: a few cans in the bath the night before the game…

“The night before, we trained on the pitch, and my back had got really stiff after training. I’d gone to see the physio and have a rub and it didn’t really do much. I went back to my room and I was a bit concerned. I was rooming with Danny Mills, and Millsy went, ‘Run yourself a bath and have a beer out of the fridge.’ I had a can of beer and sat in the bath for about half an hour and went to bed. I woke up the next day feeling great. I said to Millsy, ‘That has really helped!’

“We have the game and, yeah, it’s nice for me personally. Also, the previous season we played them and drew 0-0 at home and lost 0-1 away. And then this particular season we’d drawn 0-0 away and beat them 1-0 at home. That showed we’d moved on that bit further.

“There was a ball over the top which I collected sprinting out to the edge of my area. I think it was Delvecchio that was running to chase the ball. At the point he realised he wasn’t going to make it he made two or three steps to slow down. I guess I’ve collected the ball and slowed down not quite as quickly as he did! It was in the game at that point that if you could do something like that, you would do it. On the flipside, if it’s a far post cross and he’s coming in from behind me, he’s going to have no qualms about jumping through me. It wasn’t a predetermined thing. I remember Totti saying, ‘Martyn, Martyn, nooo!’”

Martyn’s performance earned him a 10/10 from the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Phil Rostron, one of only two times that he handed out top marks to a Leeds player in his media career. The match ball from the game was sold at auction in Paris last June for only €300. If only I’d known. A huge result meant Leeds went back to Elland Road knowing a one-goal win would be enough to put them into the quarter-final.

O’Leary reverted to his trusted 4-4-2 as an injury forced Jonathan Woodgate to miss out. Jason Wilcox started on the left wing, while Stephen McPhail came into midfield for Jones. A raucous Elland Road crowd gave Leeds the support they needed, while the club mascot Ellie the Elephant bowed down before the players as they emerged from the tunnel in the rare but enjoyable white shirt with dark blue shorts combination.

Roma picked up where they left off at Stadio Olimpico, dominating the game as Totti threaded one through ball after another into the paths of Montella and Delvecchio, the pantomime villain after his antics the week before. He received a proper kicking from Lucas Radebe in the second minute, much to the enjoyment of the home crowd. Rome might have the Colosseum, but few crowds enjoy blood on boots quite like Elland Road.

Despite Roma’s dominance on the ball, it was Leeds that created the best chances through Bakke and Kewell. Totti remained the most dangerous player on the pitch but Leeds had worked out how to stifle him by marking the players he was trying to pass to instead. Totti grew frustrated as the first half ended, flustered at the Leeds defence’s organised effort across 135 minutes of football.

Kewell began to create chances after half-time and the Elland Road crowd sensed any real magic would have to come from him. Every time he touched the ball inside the Roma half, almost 40,000 roared. He set Lee Bowyer up for a half-decent opportunity but, crucially, decided to take the next one on himself.

Bowyer laid it off for Kewell around 25 yards from goal and he took the ball past Tommasi before striking a lethal shot that had too much power for Antonioli’s outstretched hand. Leeds were in front and Elland Road had lift off. Every Roma near miss prompted loud, sarcastic cheers from the South Stand. And there were many, because Roma were throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at Leeds.

The longer this match dragged on without a Roma goal, the more the underlying niggle bubbled to the surface. O’Leary introduced Alan Smith to keep Roma’s defenders honest in the final ten minutes and, being Alan Smith, he took the role rather seriously. He tackled both Aldair and Amedeo Mangone within a minute of being on the pitch, much to the confusion of the Roma players. Why was this madman running around headfirst into challenges? Is he not a striker?

A fifty-fifty between Martyn and Delvecchio in the 88th minute lit the touchpaper for the final five minutes in which two players were sent off and somebody actually managed to anger Lucas Radebe. Delvecchio ran toward a through ball that Martyn gathered and, in the same movement, gave the Roma striker a shoulder barge that 40,000 Leeds fans had been baying for all night.

The comically dramatic referee José María García-Aranda played his part in the drama that ensued. He was two years removed from controversially sending off Laurent Blanc in France’s World Cup semi-final against Croatia and looked like he’d never gotten over it. Any challenge to his authority was treated as a threat to his personal safety, pushing players out of his way and pissing off O’Leary in the aftermath of the Martyn-Delvecchio bust-up by not allowing him to bring Darren Huckerby on for McPhail. As the ‘keeper and striker were separated, individual scuffles broke out and Radebe began to lose his cool, but gathered it just in time to enjoy the fireworks about to come.

It all kicked off when Smith — surprise, surprise — used an aerial challenge to introduce Aldair to several sharp edges of his limbs. The World Cup winner squared up to Smith but immediately regretted it, backing away. His defensive partner Zago did the same and Smith gave him the sort of gentle headbutt that would put players on the floor today.

The ref booked both, but initially didn’t realise Zago was already on a yellow, meaning the defender stood staring at him like a kid who’d stumbled upon a security guard with an Easter egg up his jumper. Zago, a balding man wearing a headband, lost it when the ref realised he had to send him off, prompting his teammate Candela to make things worse by pushing the ref in protest and turning one red card into two.

As the Elland Road crowd chanted ‘time to go!’, both Candela and Zago were led off down the tunnel and O’Leary screamed at his players to concentrate, while Capello was ushered back into his technical box by two stewards. Leeds held on for the final four minutes of stoppage time and the crowd celebrated the final whistle with a healthy dose of ‘who are ya?!’ to the away end situated in the south-east corner.

The rest, as they say, is history. Roma were Serie A champions a year later. Leeds were bankrupt and in the Championship shortly after. But it was fun while it lasted. At least both sides were happy when Leeds returned to the Stadio Olimpico in the Champions League at the end of 2000 and beat Lazio. ⬢